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Teams Face Off at NASA's Ames in Future City Competition

02.04.08

The bright and fertile minds of middle school students across the United States have cultivated their visions of what future cities must look like in order to support humankind's growing infrastructure needs. Soon they will put their conceptualizations to the test. This year’s focus: nanotechnology.

Over 30,000 students from 1,000 schools in 40 regions in the United States are participating in the 16th annual National Engineers Week Future City Competition this year, dreaming up the most practical application of built-in nanotechnologies to monitor parts of a city’s infrastructure. Small, tightly knit teams of students, along with their teacher and engineer mentors, first create their future city digitally, using SimCity 3000 software. They then transform their ideas into reality by sculpting a large table-top model using recycled materials costing no more than $100. Each team will be judged for their models, an essay, as well as a presentation they prepared defending their approach to resolving monitoring issues for tomorrow’s cities using nanotechnology.

Photo Credit: NASA Ames Research Center / Eric James Click on the image for full-resolution.

Photo Credit: NASA Ames Research Center / Eric James Click on the image for full-resolution.

Photo Credit: NASA Ames Research Center / Eric James Click on the image for full-resolution.

Photo Credit: NASA Ames Research Center / Eric James Click on the image for full-resolution.

Photo Credit: NASA Ames Research Center / Eric James Click on the image for full-resolution.

Photo Credit: NASA Ames Research Center / Eric James Click on the image for full-resolution.

Photo Credit: NASA Ames Research Center / Eric James Click on the image for full-resolution.

Photo Credit: NASA Ames Research Center / Eric James Click on the image for full-resolution.